Hands-on: Intel brings rich UI to Moblin Linux platform

Intel has unveiled the next-generation user interface of Moblin, the company's …

Intel has announced the availability of the first Moblin 2 beta release. This version introduces the platform's innovative new user interface. Although there are still some rough edges, it delivers impressive usability and aesthetic sophistication. I tested the beta on my Dell Mini 9 netbook so that I could get a real hands-on look at the new version.

Moblin is Intel's Linux-based based mobile platform for netbooks and MIDs. It is heavily optimized for the Atom processor and is designed to work well on small form-factor devices. The project is gaining significant traction among Linux distributors and many have partnered with Intel to participate in the development effort. Individual distributors will integrate Moblin components into their own netbook platforms or build their own derivatives.

Moblin and its various components are distributed under open source software licenses, which means that it can be freely modified and redistributed. Intel recently turned over control of the project to the Linux Foundation with the aim of making it even more open to other contributors. The long-term goal is to turn Moblin into the nexus of mobile Linux development and make it the de facto standard Linux platform for portable devices.

Intel has provided several alpha releases this year which have demonstrated the platform's broad hardware compatibility, excellent boot performance, and other technical features. The alpha releases, however, did not include Intel's unique user interface components. A lightweight Xfce layer was used instead as a placeholder. In the new beta release, Intel has finally unveiled its new graphical shell, a highly specialized desktop environment that is designed to provide an optimal user experience on netbook devices.

The new interface is built with Clutter, an open source scene graph framework that supports hardware-accelerated rendering. Clutter was created by OpenedHand, an open source startup that Intel acquired last year. The Clutter framework is closely aligned with the GNOME ecosystem and has been adopted by several prominent vendors that are building Linux platforms with GNOME technology. Clutter is used pervasively in Nokia's next-generation Internet Tablet operating system and will also be used in the next major version of ACCESS's smartphone operating system.

Unlike Android, Moblin's graphics stack includes a standard Xorg server and can run conventional desktop Linux applications. Much of the software that is available today on mainstream Linux distributions can be brought to Moblin without requiring any porting effort. In fact, the beta includes quite a few standard GTK+ applications, such as GEdit.

The new Clutter-based shell differentiates Moblin's user experience from a conventional desktop distro. A tabbed panel that slides down from the top of the screen provides task management functionality, application launchers, and easy access to much of the platform's underlying multimedia, social networking, Web, and productivity capabilities.

Moblin uses an unusual task management paradigm that is well-suited to mobile devices. Applications are organized into "zones," which are loosely analogous to virtual desktops. When I launch an application, the shell will automatically create a new zone in which to house the program's windows. When all of the windows in a zone have been closed, the shell will automatically remove the Zone. The zones tab on the Moblin panel will display thumbnail previews of all of the windows in each zone. You can switch to a certain zone or window by clicking, and you can move windows between zones by dragging and dropping the thumbnails. The zones tab in the shell is Moblin's replacement for the conventional taskbar.

The applications tab displays launchers for the software installed on the system. The launchers are organized into categories and are searchable. When the cursor is hovering over a launcher, a pin icon will appear in the top right-hand corner. The user can click the pin to make the application show up in the favorites list at the top of the launcher tab. The user's favorite applications will also show up on the home screen, which we will examine later in this article.

Social networking and instant messaging features are an important part of Moblin. The platform includes Empathy, GNOME's open source instant messaging client, which is built on the telepathy presence and messaging framework. In the beta release, I was able to configure Empathy to connect with my Google Talk account. When Empathy is running, the user's contacts will appear in the People tab along with their buddy icons. Users can start new conversations by clicking on one of the contacts.

w0w simply w0w, too bad my netbook is being out for repairs after a harddisk failure. I just cant wait to try this out. The future of Netbooks is definitely MOblin... hopefully this would help cure that cancer that is windows on netbooks

I'm seriously considering this on my X61s, traditional DEs and applications just waste so much of my preciously small resolution. Is there any support for certain popular extensions in their browser? I wonder why they went the Gecko route instead of Webkit.

I know the various Linux distributions have their own business interests, but I think they should all rally behind Moblin. IT LOOKS GREAT!

A consistent Linux front could go along way toward getting Adobe and other commercial software companies to port their applications to it. The lack of mainstream commercial software is one of the primary obstacles for broader Linux adoption.

Meh, It didn't run on my EeePC 701.. that makes me sad.. Everybody loved the first eee, and now no one remember it anymore..

But about Moblin, I think it's awesome, but I'm really shocked how long it took to a company realize the true potential of Linux and the various open source frameworks and technologies Moblin uses. I mean, it was always there, great technology just waiting to someone leverage it with some nifty designs

Originally posted by Ethyriel:I'm seriously considering this on my X61s, traditional DEs and applications just waste so much of my preciously small resolution. Is there any support for certain popular extensions in their browser? I wonder why they went the Gecko route instead of Webkit.

Well, this UI is on top of X-org, so it should be no problem tu run your Firefox / Seamonkey / Opera / Chromium / whatsoever

The dealmaker/breaker: wireless, BT and 3G support. It has to be 'it just works'.

I gave ubuntu netbook remix the flick after being unable to get 3G working even via manual wvdial scripts. Bluetooth file transfer was fine but I can't sync contacts or the like with my nokia. But for those issues it was so darned close yet so far to netbook perfection

For those of us lucky enough to have a hackintosh friendly netbook it will take some serious polish to get this to a state where its a better option than a hackintosh (for those of us who don't mind OSX).

Yes the geek in me would have preferred to run linux but 3G + more conventional apps (word instead of openoffice etc.) + every 3rd party device has drivers (nokia plugins etc.) = no contest.

But really, its a mobile device, if you paid for the 3G connectivity then heck even XP is a better option if you can get your 3G to work in it but not in linux.

You'd think though that with a much more fixed hardware set, plus leveraging off all the effort that has gone into linux drivers etc. that they should eventually get it to the 'it just works' stage with 95% of the netbook hardware out there. The glitz is well and good but full hardware compatibility with no CLI futzing around required should be the no. 1 aim. They also need to make sure all the 'tuning' is already done out of the box - why does ubuntu netbook remix not come with vm.swappiness already tuned, ext3 file access timestamps turned off, excess services disabled etc.

I have to say, it is a bit of a let down. It looks to be chock full of crap I'd never use. Calendaring, "Social Networking" garbage, the People tab, uPnP, etc. I don't understand why the task bar at the top is so thick either.

I get the impression that Intel is still pushing this towards MIDs as the layout suggests that was what was in mind. Netbooks have different interface options and I would have expected the interface to be slightly different.

A consistent Linux front could go along way toward getting Adobe and other commercial software companies to port their applications to it. The lack of mainstream commercial software is one of the primary obstacles for broader Linux adoption.

This is for netbooks. I'm not sure Adobe's apps would work all that well on a netbook, regardless of what UI they're using.

That said, this is slick stuff, and it looks like it would work well at (relatively) low resolution. I'd take something purpose-built for a netbook over Windows 7, and the price is right for a $299-399 machine.

I agree with chong.The first screenshot had me thinking the UI looks touch ready. Having the Zones tabs slide up and out of the way is nice for smaller screens. That is the way I use the Dock on OS X -which I would also like to use on a TABLET. (Can you hear me now, Apple?)-Carrie

The best thing about it is that Intel has had a very strong 'upstream' focus on this particular effort.

This release is specifically optimized for Atom-based netbooks and probably won't run easily on any other platform... however Intel is making sure that everything they are providing is open source and compliments what is going on with Gnome and other upstream developers.

So the Linux kernel and Gnome environment is designed to be platform agnostic. So with some effort everything you see here will be portable to the ARM or MIPS environments. The major deal breaker there would be the lack of decent open source drivers OpenGL for ARM and MIPS devices. But like is indicated this stuff will be similar to what is used in ACCESS and Nokia's linux tablet stuff.

It's obvious that Intel is intending to compete with these platforms soly based on the quality of their hardware and the competitiveness of the Atom processor and not by software environments.. at least not software in a big way.

If you go to their website they outline very specifically what versions of what libraries and other items are required to maintain compatibility with the Moblin platform. This is obviously intended as a test bed for the platform while it is expected that third parties will take it and modify it for specific devices.

For example they specify that Linux kernel 2.6.28 or newer is needed to be used. Also they say that they are using the vanilla kernel sources and that all patches that the project has created are integrated into the upstream kernel, although they do not rule out small patches in the future.

Also they are heavily using Gnome technology. Clutter UI is something that is aimed at being integrated into Gnome 3.0, which is going to be due out sometime next year. Telepathy is definately going to be in Gnome as well as UPnP media support and all that happy stuff.

I am definately looking forward to trying this stuff out on my Mini-9!!!

Good thing I replaced the Dell-provided shit-astic Broadcom Wifi card with a very nice, and very powerful, Atheros unit supported by the Linux kenrel Ath5k drivers.

Wow is understated. Linux could be so much for so many. They need to follow Intels lead. I was thinking about getting a new Mac. I most likely still will but I am tempted to get a new netbook and run Moblin on it. I think they are pulling a geek nerve here.

UI looks pretty much like a router webtool (Tabs, some windows/MDI for data entry).

I still question the effort against:a. Android -- it's Linux+VM sandbox+GoogleGears model just makes sense in a 24/7 connected device.b. Mojo/WebOS -- Palm has a compelling development API/model where webapps rule and apps can be made quickly (with security) and provide the same rich experience.c. Symbian -- ok, I'll stop there.

What's neat is this situation does comes down to 'what the user wants'. At the netbook level, do we want a rich interactive Linux/Windows/Mac experience (where you NEED to know how to do things), or a fairly interactive, but direct and intuitive experience that the iPhone/Android/Mojo offers. Moblin offers the former, even if the UI looks intuitive, it's not a direct as the smartphone interfaces. And in an active/mobile environment, I want direct vs. sitting down and figuring out what I want as on a desktop.

Very pretty, with some interesting new ideas on how to organise apps in a compact UI.

Who cares about Linux on the desktop? It seems to be doing very well for itself now in mobile phones and netbooks. These are also areas where there is much competition in the market, and so it can thrive.

Originally posted by Janne:If we disregard the UI... How well does Moblin work as a distro/OS? Would it make sense to replace my Ubuntu-installation with Moblin on my old laptop?

It basically has a slimmed down version of Fedora under the hood, but yum doesn't seem to be plugged into working repositories and it doesn't have any proprietary drivers or media codecs. I think that they intend to leave those kinds of things as an exercise for OEMs and their partner Linux vendors.

If you are looking for a Moblin environment on top of a real working distro, you might want to look at the opensuse build that is linked in the article. That would be a bit more usable out of the box.

Why am I having problems running this on a macbook 2.4ghz processor in bootcamp/ vmware? I tried both vmware and bootcamp, and it's not running efficiently. The whole platform lags, and the interface is slow? I was thinking driver issues, but it wont allow me to do a software update to install nvidia drivers or nothing? Should I go out and buy a netbook for this?

I haven't paid much attention to Moblin, but now I am. It looks very impressive. The UI looks fresh and useful for mobile devices. The UI looks touch ready and would be amazing on a tablet or even a phone.

More and more I'm thinking that Linux on the desktop is a dead end, and mobile Linux is the future for end users.

It's not a computing environment (even for a Beta, it's thin), it's a toy for vapid tweens who only Facebook/IM/Tweet/whatnot. It's not even as good an interface as Sugar, and that was no prize, itself.

If you want an icon-driven environment, go with the Ubuntu Netbook Remix, or even Asus' default Xandros install. If you want to use your machine -- however small it may be -- as an actual COMPUTER, this is not the OS for you.